Last year, the share of Japanese cars in the domestic automobile market fell to 1%. This means that one of the 100 new cars sold in Korea is Japanese. Experts analyzed that “the overall appeal of Japanese tea has fallen.”
5 brands sold 2,500 units last year
“Domestic car quality improves, so there is no discrimination”
Traveling in Japan decreases, and familiarity decreases
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Nissan’s luxury car brand, Infiniti, suffered a demeanor of one new registered unit in the Korean market last month. Infiniti’s flagship sedan Q50 was once a popular car model in the top 5 in the Korean imported car market. [사진 인피니티]
– According to the Korea Imported Vehicle Association (KAIDA) and the Kaizu-U Data Research Institute on the 7th, sales of five Japanese car brands (Lexus, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Infiniti) in the domestic market last year were 2,500 units. It accounted for 7.5% of imported car sales last year and 1.1% of all new car sales in Korea. It was smaller than in 2019 (36,61 units) when the boycott of Japanese products occurred.
It is the first time since 2001, when the Imports Association started counting sales results, that the proportion of Japanese brands in Imports sales fell below 10%. Japanese cars also accounted for 35.5% of imported car sales in 2008.
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2020 Toyota Prius AWD
– “As the quality of domestic cars such as Genesis has improved (from the perspective of consumers), there is no reason to buy Lexus.” And there is a distance.” This means that Japanese cars will adopt designs that only resonate with domestic consumers.
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The proportion of Japanese cars among imported cars. Graphic = Reporter Cha Junhong [email protected]
– Lee Eun-hee, professor of consumer science at Inha University, said, “Tea is more than just a consumer product for Korean consumers. Japanese cars have been recognized for their practicality, but Japanese cars have lost their competitiveness as European car prices have recently dropped.”
On the other hand, sales of Japanese apparel brand UNIQLO are on the rise. From September 2019 to August of last year, FRL Korea, which owns UNIQLO, had sales of over 600 billion won. In-ho Kim, Vice Chairman of Business Insight, said, “About 10 years ago, young Japanese people thought,’We don’t need a car anymore. Automakers also made less effort to innovate and develop.” He added, “(Japanese cars) are losing to Tesla and Hyundai in the recent electric and hydrogen car competition.”
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Sales of Japanese tea and the size of Koreans visiting Japan. Graphic = Reporter Cha Junhong [email protected]
– There is also a view that the decline in the’familiarity with Japan’ of domestic consumers affected the sluggish sales of Japanese cars. In 2018, when Japanese cars were sold the most in the domestic market, visitors to Japan (753 million people) were also the highest ever. Last year, it is estimated that only 500,000 tourists visited Japan in the aftermath of a novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19).
Lee Yeon-taek, a professor at Hanyang University’s Department of Tourism, said, “As the exchanges between Korea and Japan became distant, environmental factors affected product demand.” It is observed that there is a possibility that the demand for Japanese cars will increase if exchanges between Korea and Japan increase in the future.
Reporter Kim Young-joo [email protected]
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